simply oroque's view

this morning started out normal for me. as usual, thursday mornings are the worst of the week when the excitement of a monday morning (yes i said excitement) has worn off, and the drive of wednesday has finally gone. its the morning when i struggle to wake up and always get out of the house late. the soul is willing but the body is weak. luckily, in lagos nigeria, thats the environmental sanitation day every week for traders and all markets in the state remain closed until ten o'clock. you won't believe how much relief that creates for other road users like me so i still manage to get to work in decent time to do stuff like facebook and blog. okay, so why am i telling you all this? i can't quite remember but anyways... so i was going past my fave spot - iyana ipaja under bridge - yes, thats where everything happens, when i suddenly felt my spirits lift. in fact my spirits lifted me so high from my half-asleep state that i began to hum to myself. why this sudden joy you migh...

i bet that i've said more than my fair share of crap on nigerian music and if some artistes knew me personally, i'd be holed up in my house all year to avoid being scrubbed on the ground...but you know, they just won't let me be. first off, i can't stand it when musicians (as part of their lyrics) insult people. calling everyone who criticizes them even a little, jealous etcetera - yes, timaya, i am talking to you. since my scathing comments on their lack of originality hasnt stopped them churning out rubbish, neither will their calling people like me jealous, stop me from calling them out on their crap. today, i'll need y'all to head to youtube and check out the following videos and then please let me know if i'm talking rubbish. maybe i should do this in terms of absolutely hate to manageably love. number 1 - absolutely hate - goes to P.Square for their "Danger" single. these two guys hit us in the face like a bucket of ice water in scorching hea...

its something that we all forget sometimes...and thats to pause for a minute and thank people who make everyday a good day. yesterday i got feedback from a few people who read my blog (i didn't think anyone reads this stuff) and it made me feel really good to know that, although my views can be mine alone, someone somewhere has the time to read it and disagree with me on my style, points, facts etcetera. so i'm not writing anything today (although coming to work by public transport just leaves me bursting to write about all the things that are just right with lagos state, and just wrong with people)... one reader said he hates my blog because its a "doomsday column"...well, firstly, i didn't know i was writing a column (sounds fancy, maybe i should), and i don't recall ever writing a single bad thing about fashola (lol), but you know its all good right? another person set the records straight about my opinion on the impending deregulation of the petroleum sect...

yesterday was a lot better than the day before, thank you all for asking (like you care, right?) but it had its many twists and sometimes i wonder if i'm just dramatic or if dramatic things just find a way to happen to me. so it happened that my car developed some tyre issues on the way to work and i sent it off to get repaired. which meant that at the close of business yesterday, i had no choice than to use the public transport system, which i haven't used for 11 months now. at first, i kept thinking how i'd manage without my car on the way home but as soon as i got to obalende (a popular busstop in lagos, nigeria) i felt like a kid in a candy store. suddenly, life was exciting again. it is funny how much i miss the under-bridge busstop scene. its like a different world altogether. the lady who used to sell me recharge card was still there (albeit now much fatter and lighter skinned) with her drag queen make-up still intact, the guy who calls out for passengers on the ...

i often hear it being said that behind every dark cloud there is a silver lining. its something i have believed in for a long time and i usually console myself with this saying when i'm having a really bad day at work (cue yesterday). yesterday was such a horrendous experience at the office that i just kept hoping that somehow, some cheery news would just interrupt my day and make it all right. as usual, i was listening to the radio on my way home and happened upon the interview with yinka odumakin who happens to be some official of the action congress (a political party in nigeria). the topic for discussion on the programme (and dare i say, on every nigerian's lips today) was "what the heck does the government think it is doing by de-regulating the downstream petroleum sector?"...well, not exactly in those words but you get the drift. the gist of the issue is, we now get to buy petrol for 95 naira and kerosene for 102 naira. like i expected, every other line of his a...

for the first time in a long time, i didn't wake up early to catch the president's independence day address to the country. i mean, anyone following the happenings in the past few months can by himself write the independence day address. considering that no visible progress has been made in any sector of the economy, i expected them to scrap the speech and show a nigerian movie instead. but i guess president yaradua still had something to say: about the challenges of the past few months in the global economy and the success of the amnesty programme. right. thanks, goodbye. yesterday, my brother who went to abuja for a week, sent us all an SMS that he was already at the airport waiting to catch a 5 pm virgin nigeria (or is it nigerian eagle now?) flight to lagos. clearly by 6 pm the flight should be in lagos and by 7 pm max, considering it was a sunday evening, we expected him to be home. so of course by 6.30 pm we began to call him. MTN network informed us that his number ...